Flashback: Rove Erases 22 Million White House Emails on Private Server at Height of U.S. Attorney Scandal – Media Yawns

Jon Ponder

Rove

Now that they’ve taken control of Congress, Republicans are wielding power much the same way they did in the Clinton era and for the six years afterward when they controlled the White House and Congress under George W. Bush: ineptly — examples: 1, 2 etc.

Then as now, it’s clear that the only thing Republicans do very well is inflame the media withbogusscandals — which is a handy way to distract attention from their ineptitude. They are doing this with their usual aplomb, and considerable success, in the matter of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to send emails.

Clinton has said she deleted about 50,000 emails that dealt with personal matters, citing her daughter’s wedding and her mother’s funeral as examples. All the correspondence pertaining to official business was turned over to and archived by State. The deletion of the emails, though perfectly legal, has excited House Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, who has announced plans to deploy House committees to investigate what might aptly be called Servergate.

Never mind that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, has said he used a system similar to Clinton’s — and never mind that in 2007 Karl Rove deleted 22 million emails from a private server in the Bush White House — a matter about which the Beltway media said little and Republicans in Congress, like Rep. John Boehner, said nothing.

Here is a brief refresher on the White House email scandal:

Not long after George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, Rove, his top political aide, set up a private email server for use in the White House. The stated purpose of the system — the primary domain name on which was gwb43.com — was that it would be used exclusively for the sort of political correspondence that Bush and Rove were not permitted to do on the taxpayer’s dime.

Seven years later, Bush and Rove were embroiled in two competing scandals — the Valerie Plame scandal, in which operatives for Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, including Rove and Scooter Libby, were accused of unmasking Valerie Plame, a CIA specialist in the black market for weapons of mass destruction, for purely partisan reasons, and the U.S. Attorney purge, in which Rove’s political operation in the White House was accused of ordering Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to purge eight U.S. attorneys who were qualified prosecutors and replace them with political hacks with little or no prosecutorial experience.

Rove escaped prosecution in the Libby case, but Libby was convicted (Bush quickly commuted the sentence) on March 6, 2007, at the same time Bush and Rove were under fire for purging the U.S. attorneys. During the investigation, it came to light that Rove’s server had been used to send official, non-political emails — correspondence that was required by law to be preserved under the Presidential Records Act.

On April 12, 2007, Rove’s operation admitted that it had deleted at least 5 million emails from the server. In December 2009, technicians who had examined the server reported that the number of emails that had been deleted was far greater — 22 million.

What was in the emails? No one will ever know. It’s likely as not that there was incriminating evidence in the correspondence that tied Rove and others to the treasonous exposure of Agent Plame (which, at a minimum, was a violation of government security), the U.S. attorneys’ purge and perhaps other scandals, including the inquiry into charges that Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff had used his entre with others in the GOP to bribe government officials. Abramoff was in prison serving the first year of his sentence when the email scandal broke.

If nothing else, this appears to be a prima facie case (or, rather, 22 million cases) of obstruction of justice. How serious is obstruction of justice? It’s the crime Pres. Richard Nixon was charged with by the House of Representatives in 1974 that prompted him to resign rather than face impeachment.

But what sort of evidence might have been lost in the 50,000 emails Hillary Clinton deleted? The insinuation from Republicans is that something dispositive about the Benghazi scandal might have been erased. It’s hard to guess what that might have been. What the GOP seems to be looking for in its eight investigations into Benghazi, so far, is a stand-down order issued by the State Department or the White House to the military that left the Benghazi consulate vulnerable to the attack that ensued. These Republicans know, of course, that the Secretary of State doesn’t have the authority to issue orders to the military.

Given that, there’s no question that the coverage of the Clinton email “scandal” is out of scale, but how does the incessant media coverage today stack up against the scandal seven years ago when Rove’s political operation in the White House erased 22 million emails many of which likely included evidence of serious crimes?

Last week, the fact-checking organization Politifact, which tends to skew to the right, compared coverage of the two scandals. Here’s it’s verdict:

We did a search through Lexis-Nexis, a research service that tracks news articles and transcripts, between March and May 2007. We found more than 125 transcripts from the major cable networks and National Public Radio that include “Republican National Committee” and “email” within 10 words of each other.

The Lexis-Nexis search also yielded more than 200 related newspaper articles across the country within the same time frame.

Let’s compare that to coverage of the Clinton controversy.

Since the story broke March 3, 2015 — two weeks ago — we found 204 cable and public radio transcripts that include “Clinton” and “email.” We also found 1,700 newspaper articles across the country.

That’s several times as many articles and transcripts about Clinton than there were about the Bush email controversy in a quarter of the time. It’s a rough measurement, but clearly there has been more media attention on Clinton’s use of private email than that of the White House staffers.

Even so, Politifact rated the claim that coverage of Clinton’s email deletions is out of scale compared with coverage of Rove’s in 2007 is “mostly false.”

Wait. What?

In the Rove scandal, there were 125 broadcast reports and 200 newspaper articles over three months about the millions of deleted emails. Today, in just two weeks there have been 200 broadcast reports and 1,700 newspaper articles about the 50,000 deleted emails.

And yet Politifact finds the assertion that there’s been more coverage of Clinton than there was of Rove to be “mostly false.” How did they do that?

Simple. Politifact keyed its verdict to a Fox pundit’s hyperbolic statement there was “zero coverage” of Rove’s scandal when it broke. So, yeah, it’s “mostly false” that there was “zero coverage.”

Republicans’ objective in using its lapdogs in the “liberal media” to exaggerate the Clinton emails controversy is to damage her image in advance of her run for the presidency. Polls show that their strategy is working — while Hillary Clinton remains the odds-on favorite among Democratic voters, her approval rating has slipped among all voters in polls released since the email deletions came to light.

389 Comments

Wow. I read every comment. The only one that stands out is Mindy’s. We need to find ways to unite. So many of you seem rather intellegent. So, come to the table with ways to strengthen our future as America’s citizens. Come to the table as fine examples for children and generations to come. Be the one’s that becomes a history to be proud of. Is anyone listening?

The correct solution to this is to charge Hillary, then pardon both her and General Petreus because there was no intent to harm the country.

THAT is the fair and appropriate thing to do, to hold them accountable and to send a message that security with classified information is now paramount in this age of emerging security threats.

Losing emails is not even in the same universe as exposing the highest level of classified information on an insecure email platform. Comey called them out for not having even the most basic levels of security that a public provider of email such as GMAIL has. And he did that TWICE.

Just because it has “email” in the sentence doesn’t male it the same issue. You are comparing people who separated work/secure emails from private emails, and accidentally or improperly used the wrong account versus a person who purposefully set up a private email server to avoid work mails being transmitted through the government servers and did not turn those over -even though they were under subpoena- for more than two years.
Ridiculous.

There is no moral or legal equivalence between the Clinton and Petraeus cases. He admitted allowing Paula Broadwell to have unauthorized access to classified materials and lying about that to the FBI. So there was intent and concealment in the Petraeus case. There is no such finding in the Clinton case.

Helen, you’ve got it, alright! You are among the uninformed, misinformed and unintelligent minions in our Country. You are the perfect example of why we should require I. Q. testing before anyone is allowed to vote. What a shame.

Wow, Joy! Attacking someone who doesn’t see things the same way that you do. Spewing hatred must make you feel so good! After reading your words, I feel fairly comfortable in saying that you are a miserable, terrible person!

Great law…but there would have to be undisputable evidence that this was transferred or recovered by an outside entity as in the Generals case. Assuming that hostile actors recovered this info, is a theory and not a fact.

But her server was hacked. There is a Romanian in jail right now for it. More than once, more than twice, etc etc. “Intent” or not, she exposed sensitive material i.e. “transferred”. No, she is guilty as shit. And you know it.

Jim Goolsby, no it wasn’t. The FBI stated that there was no proof that it was hacked. What the weasel did was infer that it was “probably” hacked and the pundits and clueless have taken that and run with it.

This is probably where Hillary got the idea of having a private server. That way she could co-mingle her work, personal and shady foundation emails and no one would be the wiser. Were it not for the Benghazi hearing, no one would have known. I have a menial, practically minimum wage telephone job and would never use my work email for personal use or my personal email for work use. Who thinks that’s okay???

These were not top secret classified documents! Think! IF there was a basis for concern when it happened GWB would have had to resign. There is no way the Liberals wouldn’t have taken to the streets had him stripped naked, hung in the town square and flogged!

That is not n true, if you read or listened to FBI Director Comey her stated that there were 7 string email chains that contained top secret information. Get your facts correct, you just sound ignorant saying things that aren’t true.

So are you saying her stating for 16 months that she did not send or receive “any” classified materials was not CONCEALMENT???…the people need to see that for what it is… A lying corrupt politician willing to say anything to get elected… Crooked as they come, and this is not the only corruption we have witnessed from her over the last 30+yrs!!! Wake up… Impeach Obama and Indict Hillary… the Vice president can handle things until Bernie and Trump battle it out!

Impeach Obama? For what? Get a grip–you can’t just impeach a U.S. President who was elected TWICE by a majority of we-the-people. You may not like him but–at least in the America I live in–you, being just one person, aren’t allowed to declare who is president or what laws apply to life in this country. If you want that, move to a country where ISIS has control.

General Petrus gave his girlfriend secret documents to publish in her book…are we really comparing the two? I will agree on the prosecution of Secretary Clinton, if you will agree to open an investigation into the email practices of Ryan, Powell, and Condi. She should not be able to get away with more, because she is a Clinton. However she should not be be punished for the same reason.

Both Powell and Rice had emails retroactively declared “classified”. Powell actually used an AOL email account.

GWB and Cheney had private servers while GWB was president. One was in the Oval Office; one was set up by the RNC! MILLIONS of records were deleted.

How come they are not being investigated and/or charged with criminal activity? (RWith the possible exception of Cheney (remember Valerie Plume?), none of these officials leaked (or intended to leak) information. They were just doing their jobs. (Rhetorical Question.)

Maybe Comgress needs to enter the 21st century and allocate more $ for IT support. It’s unreasonable to expect high level government officials to do their jobs and
understand the ever changing technology.

I have to admit what she did was wrong. I think the republican party is making to big of a deal over this though. Its ok for them to do the same thing. There was never this big of an investigation in to their wrong doing. Im sure if there was, every one would have found out they where sending top secret emails. We will never know that thought.

So hold on. Carl Rove deleted private campaign emails. So what? He didn’t have top secret government files on that system. Was he Secretary of State? Was he using an unsecured server? This is a joke. Hillary broke the law.Because of intent or incompetence, her server was exposed to hackers and should have been considered unsecured. So either she did this knowing the risks or that she’s that stupid… Either case, she’s guilty.

Secretary Clinton only defied an executive order from President Obama. There were no laws broken in using her personal server. Her discipline could be a reprimand from her boss (Obama), or termination from her job as Secretary of State, but usually most people are warned before they are fired.

A lot of people do not realize that Obama was always telling everybody that he was going to Bringing people to justice that perpetrated these crimes under the Bush Administration.. as soon as he got in the white house he said oh let’s all forgive and forget… he is no different than the other scam artists who are trying to destroy this country.. they don’t want to take each other to court because they all have something to hide..
I remember those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it and we are repeating it every year because nobody’s doing jackshit about it

During his 2008 campaign for president, Obama repeatedly vowed that, while he opposed “partisan witch-hunts”, he would instruct his attorney general to “immediately review” the evidence of criminality in these torture programs because “nobody is above the law.” Yet, almost immediately after winning the 2008 election, Obama, before he was even inaugurated, made clear that he was opposed to any such investigations, citing what he called “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards”.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer

This just tells me that the system IS rigged, and has been for years. Many people have talked about being sick of our corrupt system and getting a complete outsider in charge to shake things up. Well, NOW IS OUR CHANCE. The Republican establishment doesn’t like him, the democrats hate him, the media despises him. ALL of his support is coming from we the people. TRUMP 2016

Rove was not SOS and running for the office of the President. Also, as laid out in the DOJ report, these techno security issues evolved over time, and HRC actually signed paperwork pledging to the OPPOSITE of what she did.

Don’t forget that Hillary did NOT set up her own server. It was done by the government’s IT dept, at her request.
Also, many (all??) of those emails marked Secret or Top Secret were changed to those levels by the investigators AFTER this whole witch hunt started. They started out as Confidential or general info emails.

Every time I hear Trump call her a liar, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. He doesn’t even know when he’s lying anymore because he’s done it so often. What would our country turn into if he was elected?

Nancy, your comment is refreshing. I get sick to my stomach every time Trump opens his mouth. Literally sick… I’m so TRUMPED OUT… OVER… DONE… SICKENED. WHO CARES? Trump doesn’t even represent his own party. He is a sore loser, trasher, basher, bigot. The people that want Hillary for president don’t care about Trump’s personal accomplishments; Trump mania, the media or haters. We want someone who LOVES what America stands for; has experience in the “field”; the finesse to engage with diplomats across the globe; and RESPECTFUL of all people. Someone who is ARTICULATE – not a narcissist who uses the C word on public television where children are watching; makes fun of people with disabilities; thinks Muslims are all alike; and is stupid enough to think MEXICO would pay for his stupid “wall”. He is deceived, uneducated, and shoots from the hip. He is the liar, fooler, hater and mis-guided one. He is clueless to what the majority of Americans WANT in a president. I cannot wait until the end… when he is the one who is fired. The violence he evokes would turn our country against each other. He would be a horrible representative for America.

No, she is just the biggest bitch around, I came under sniper fire, we were dead broke when left the white house, I used to be against gay marriage, now she’s for it, she was a pro gun person while Bill the perv was president, she has never, ever told the truth.

Everytime Hillary speaks she lies……why do you think she has close to 70% of the American people believes she is dishonest……..how many more people surrounding the Clintons will end up with their life taken? Gross mishandling of classified material is a crime and she should have her security clearance taken away from her, just like others have been treated in rhe past.

The internet has grown up exponentially since 2007. Almost ten years may as well be a hundred. SHE KNEW BETTER and being a lawyer with her lying lawyer husband they delay, deflect and send smoke screens (Loretta Lynch Meeting), twenty seven month delay in releasing anything else? Come on liberals, we are in this boat together. I find it hard to imagine you would vote for this.

Carl Rove is one of the primary architects in the sale & destruction of the Republican Party. This self-serving, slimy bastard is a prime example of the extreme subversion and traitorous nature of the political arena.

Gone are the days when political parties were extensions of the will of the American people. Today, we have no true representation in government. We have only
political pawns, bought and paid for by anonymous funding pacts, thanks to the carefully selected “supreme court”.

Carl Rove is a traitor (gave up a spy) and a war criminal (torture in Iraq) he should be in prison so don’t give me this Hillary should be jail bullshit. Nothing she sent was classified at the time get over youselves.

You guys are all losing focus here. What happened in the past presidencies already happened. Find someone to retroactively prosecute them. What we are dealing with now is a complete disregard for the law and the national security of our country. So these guys in the past fucked up, let’s not continue that trend so “your team” cam win an election. We have to quit giving out free passes to the people. Hillary has a laundry list of scandal since she was a lawyer just starting out. Trump may not be any better but we should demand more of them and ourselves.

So why is nobody DEMANDING that Trump stop stomping on women, Muslims, war heroes, Native Americans, Mexicans……oh, the list goes on and on.
Just picture him getting PO’d at the Russian or Chinese or North Korean president/premier. I think he would have no problem getting us into a nuke confrontation while stomping his feet and declaring them Commies and Chinks. He is a bomb waiting to go off.

Trump has said some radical things but his intentions are all good. He can and will be controlled and contained by the Constitution and Congress. He will surround himself with the best constitutional attorneys to ensure he follows the law. If crooked Hillary becomes president we will have 4 more years of lawless governance! This evil woman is ethically bankrupt and has proven her disdain for law! Maybe you should refrain in watching liberal media. ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN have all lied, fabricated and distorted the news for years! If you want to blog, at least take the time to educate yourself with real facts!

So why not just put Trump’s head in a jar, in a room, on a dedicated channel where he can spew his medicine show insanity 24/7 to distract his disenfranchised, fear based, low information consitiuency while attorneys and the Senate run the country while ‘strictly’ adhering to the constitution?

No, the point is that the same people who are making this story #1 didn’t care when their own guys not only did the same but did it worse. It loses all credibility when you only consider it a crime when it’s done by someone you don’t like.

Sure, nothing to see here! Either you’re just so liberally blind or you’re just stupid. Hillary broke at least 7 laws which are completely chargeable! I would suggest you learn about the law and the way it works! As far as you changing the subject, try to stay focused on one subject at a time. I know it’s hard for you liberals.

What I find strange is why. Why would she (former secretary Mrs. Clinton) insist on going out of her way for this kind of electronic correspondence? Even after the F.B.I. briefed her on how to use a protected server for official documents AND why it was so important to do so. Several e-mails were labeled “classified” and some were even TOP SECRET. If someone approached her with a briefcase full of money and said something to the effect of “use a non government server at this time on this day and you’ll get another briefcase just like this one.” If that kind of senerio took place, then that’s treason. I love my country. I don’t want to see it overrun by hostile forces or any military personnel hurt or killed. It doesn’t matter who you or I support, which political party we identify with, what matters now is punishing those responsible to send a very clear message to all who end up in a position that could potentially harm the .U.S. of A. and act in a fashion acceptable to maintaining our security and sovereignty.

I find it amazing that so many people are making “educated opinions”. There is no such thing as second hand facts. By the time infomation is released to the public it has become the opinion of the reporter. We have became so hungry for information yet to lazy to research the truth. The majority of the people in this country merely roll with the flow. They are ready to jump in with both feet and defend “their party” with out any first hand knowledge about the actual true facts. We have set back and allowed our voted in officials to use us against each other. They work together behind the cameras to keep the people in turmoil, confused and divided. The easiest way to gain and keep complete control is to divide the country. Most people do not know who to trust or what to believe anymore, so they believe the side that they have grown up to believe in or the one that puts out the most well written propoganda. Keeping the people’s mind on things that are really out of our control keeps from focusing on things we can control. Those in Congress and Senate have taken complete control, we are the idiots that allow them to use their power for personal gain. They vote their own raises, they walk out or don’t show up anytime they please, they are bought off by big businesses and they are on their way to destroying Social Security. They have worked hard in getting this country divided in every way possible and sadly they have succeeded. At this point it is time to clean house and the people take control, after all we are the real bosses, or at least we should be. Just a rant because most people will cintinue to hang on to “their political side” until our country goes down like a sinking ship. But so be it, you can still blame Obama, or Bush 1 or Clinton or Bush 2 or heck maybe Washington he started it.

The smoke screen story lasted as long a lingering fart and has the same affect – it stinks. Not a single email in that story was CLASSIFIED – Hillary misshandled TOP SECRET. SECRET, and CONFIDENTIAL material – that is a fact as addressed by the FBI Director. There is no comparison between the stories email and what is the extremely probable damage occuring with Hillary’s mishandleing of classified data.

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Enumerati

15.6%

An early straw poll of members of the progressive group MoveOn.org shows a wide-open competition for liberal voters in the forthcoming 2020 Democratic presidential contest, NBC News reports. The most popular potential candidate was Beto O’Rourke at 15.6%, followed by joe Biden at 14.9%, and then Sen. Bernie Sanders with 13.1%.

Enumerati

29%

A new CNN poll finds President Trump’s approval rating for handling the Russia investigation dips to 29%, matching a low previously hit in June of this year. “But Robert Mueller’s approval rating is also down in the poll: 43% approve and 40% disapprove. That compares to a 48% approve to 36% disapprove split in early October. The dip in Mueller’s numbers comes almost entirely among independents, among whom approval has fallen 10 points to 36%.”

Enumerati

57%

A new NPR/PBS/Marist poll finds that 57% of Americans think President Trump should compromise on his border wall to prevent a government shutdown. Furthermore, nearly 69% of Americans do not consider building a border wall between the United States and Mexico to be an immediate priority for the next Congress.

Enumerati

$25,000

“Jessica Denson, a former staffer for President Donald Trump’s campaign, is fighting an order to pay nearly $25,000 for violating a nondisclosure agreement, according to court papers,” BuzzFeed News reports. “The award to the Trump campaign came out of arbitration — non-public proceedings the campaign pursued against Denson after she filed two lawsuits against it. Denson was ordered to pay $25,000 to the campaign in October, but the award wasn’t made public until Denson’s lawyers included it in court filings in New York County Supreme Court in late November.”

Enumerati

20

The Washington Post has instituted a new fact checking category — called “Bottomless Pinocchios” — for President Trump’s false claims that have been repeated at least 20 times and were originally rated Three or Four Pinocchios. “The Fact Checker has not identified statements from any other current elected official who meets the standard other than Trump. In fact, 14 statements made by the president immediately qualify for the list.”

Poetic Justice

Steve Bannon’s no longer calling important shots,
And his invitations to speak usually end in boycotts.
His latest speaking brouhaha
Came from the University of Montana,
Which canceled Bannon’s keynote at a conference on sex robots.

Verbatim

“Jesus loves Michael Cohen, but everybody else thinks he’s an idiot. He’s obviously a sleaze-oid grifter. And if I were a prosecutor, I wouldn’t base a prosecution on evidence given to me by Mr. Cohen.”

Verbatim

“Fake News has it purposely wrong. Many, over ten, are vying for and wanting the White House Chief of Staff position. Why wouldn’t someone want one of the truly great and meaningful jobs in Washington. Please report news correctly. Thank you!”

— President Trump, insisting on Tuesday that “he’s having no trouble finding a new chief of staff, despite having already burned through two such top aides and being turned down by his reported first choice,” Politico reports.

“We’ve had limited success in dealing with this President. His word isn’t good. Within 48 hours he reverses himself. It’s very difficult to enter into a long-term agreement.”

Verbatim

“These power grabs highlight one of the most disturbing facts about American politics today: The Republican Party has become institutionally indifferent to the health of democracy. It prioritizes power over principle to such an extreme degree that it undermines the most basic functioning of democracy. … In the long run, the GOP’s turn against democracy could well be a greater threat to the American experiment than anything President Trump has done.”